


How D'Ya Like Them Apples?

by firecat



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga), Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Apples, Bullying, Canonical Character Death (mentioned), Crossover, Death, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Justice, Lima Beans, Lux (Lucifer TV), Mazikeen is a horndog, Punishment, Shinigami, Trope Bingo Round 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27301693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecat/pseuds/firecat
Summary: On Hallowe'en, Ryuk the Shinigami shows up at Lux, eats some apples, and leaves a Death Note behind. Lucifer and company have to decide what to do with it.Set mid-season 2 ofLucifer. No spoilers for subsequent seasons.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Froday Flash Fiction Little & Monthly Specials 2020





	How D'Ya Like Them Apples?

**Author's Note:**

> For:  
> 15th Froday Madness: Supernatural AU/Fusion.  
> FFFC 100th Special Challenge, Table D: Fairytale/Fantasy/SciFi, prompt 70: demon.  
> Trope Bingo Round 15 prompt: sins/virtues

Hallowe’en at Lux. Every manner of creature and costume. Name any kind of being. If there was a sexy version of it, it was there with fishnet stockings on. If there was a zombie version, it was there with pancake makeup and theatrical blood. If there was a fairy version, it was there with gauzy wings that knocked into everyone else on the dance floor.

Lucifer’s favorite that year was the Shinigami. If you’d pressed him, he wouldn’t’ve been able to explain how he knew that was what the costume was. It wasn’t as if he’d made a study of Japanese mythology. But as soon as he looked at the reveler, he thought: “That’s a Shinigami.”

The Shinigami was at least seven feet tall (was that extra height somehow built into the costume, or was the wearer a basketball player?), and the shock of black hair sticking straight up from the skull-like head added another six inches. The eyes were red, and they looked so natural that Lucifer thought for a second he was looking in a mirror. The skin was bone-white, and the mouth, painted black in a curdling grin, was full of sharp fangs. The spikes that stood out all around the shoulders of the leather catsuit looked like they were made of giant spider-legs. 

The body was skeleton-thin and sheathed in skintight black leather. Around the waist was a chain-mail belt with a skull buckle. The suit even had matching gloves, and there were rings on the fingers.

Maze hadn’t noticed him — she was too busy canoodling behind the bar with the person in the sexy-angel costume — but one of the bouncers caught him stealing from the tray of apples and came to her about it.

He thought she’d want to know, because the apples were for the game she was hosting, Bobbing-for-Snapples. It was a cross between Snap-dragon and Bobbing for Apples. The apples floated in a vat of brandy, and the goal was to claim an apple within the time limit, using only your mouth, while swilling as much of the brandy as you could. When Maze and the other demons played it in Hell, they lit the brandy on fire first, but of course that was too dangerous for mortals. It was still her favorite part of the Lux Hallowe’en party.

“I told him to stop taking the apples, and he only laughed and said ‘but I like apples,’” the bouncer said to Maze. “His voice! He has some kind of voice modulator, because I swear, his voice sounded like it came from the bowels of Hell. Freaked me right out.”

Maze told him he’d done the right thing, and then she went to see for herself, because he’d said “bowels of Hell.” She didn’t really believe anyone from there had gotten out and come to Earth. That hadn’t happened in a long time (not counting her and Lucifer and his Mum, of course). But if something like that were to happen, Hallowe’en would certainly be the most likely time. 

Maze saw that Lucifer was talking to him, and leading him away from the precious apples.

“I’m sorry,” she heard the red-eyed demon say. He reminded her of an old friend from back in Hell, and that reminded her she hadn’t gotten laid yet tonight. The sexy angel was playing hard to get. “I’ll leave you a little something to compensate you for the loss.”

“Oh no, don’t worry about that,” said Lucifer. “If you like apples, you must try Lux’s house-made apple liqueur. Come with me.”

Well, that was one way to sort the problem.

~~~

The next day, Lucifer was sitting at the bar, looking puzzled. He held a thin notebook in his hands.

“Whatcha looking at?” Maze asked. 

Lucifer showed her the notebook. The cover was black. Maze opened the front cover and read:

**Death Note**  
**How to use it**  
**The human whose name is written in this book shall die.**

Maze laughed. “Guess someone left part of their Hallowe’en costume behind.”

“I wonder,” said Lucifer. 

“Is anything written in it yet?”

“No.”

Maze took the notebook and a pen and wrote in it.

“What are you writing?”

“The name of a bounty who just gave me the slip. Notorious criminal, escaped from death row.” She handed the notebook back to Lucifer. “Might as well see if it works, right?”

Lucifer made a scoffing noise and downed the rest of his drink. He headed up to his penthouse, taking the notebook with him.

~~~

Maze and Lucifer looked at the headline story.

> **Notorious Death Row Criminal Found Dead**
> 
> _The notorious death row criminal, Harry "Snake Eyes" Washington, was found dead in a motel room off I-5 today. Washington had escaped from prison and had evaded attempts to recapture him. Authorities say he died of a heart attack._

“Well, Maze,” said Lucifer. “Looks like you served justice after all.”

Maze was gobsmacked. 

“Where’s the notebook, Lucifer? I want to try again. It might have been a coincidence.”

“Of course it was a coincidence,” said Lucifer haughtily. “But even so, I think I’m not going to let you write in the book again. I know what you’re like when you’re angry. It’s hard enough keeping you from killing people with the weapons you’ve already got, never mind giving you a new one.”

“What have you got against killing people?” asked Maze, frustrated because Lucifer was being a control freak _as usual._

“Nothing, if they’re people who _deserve_ to be killed.”

“You’re the arbiter of that and I’m not, then?”

“Well, I _am_ the Devil. And you’re not. I’m the one who punishes evil. You carry out the punishments.”

“But really, Lucifer. Do you go to committee meetings to decide which souls end up in Hell? You’ve always told me the souls themselves decide where they’re going to end up. Without looking into someone’s soul, how do you know they deserve to be killed?”

Maze had a tendency to ask such gnarly questions.

“I’m not writing anyone’s name in the book, Maze. In case you’ve forgotten, angels aren’t allowed to kill humans, and no one has tested the case with former angels. I’m just not letting _you_ write any more names in it.”

“Fine, be that way,” said Maze, and stomped off in a huff. 

~~~

“That’s very intriguing, Lucifer,” said Linda after he explained about how the notebook was supposed to work. “How does it make you feel?”

Lucifer took a moment to swig from his flask, ignoring his therapist’s disapproving frown. “I’m not sure,” he said. “At first I was angry and felt like my schtick had been stolen. But the more I thought about it, the less likely that seemed.”

“How did it seem like it was stealing your schtick?”

“Meting out justice, which is _my_ job.”

“But is it really about meting out justice? A book where you can kill someone by writing their name could be used to unjust ends, couldn’t it? It could be used to kill for any of the reasons people kill. Not all of them are just.”

“Yes, I agree with you, and that’s why I changed my mind.”

“You still haven’t told me what you feel about it now,” Linda pointed out.

“I’ll tell you, then. I’m worried. If it really works, I’m not sure how I’m going to keep it safe.”

“Really works?” Linda asked.

So Lucifer told her about the notorious criminal.

Linda told him his time was up pretty soon after that. She was still trying to process that he was the actual Devil and Maze was a demon. She wasn’t going to be able to handle supernatural death-dealing notebooks on top of that. 

Lucifer was annoyed that she hadn’t solved his problem for him.

~~~

Lucifer crunched on a Cool Ranch Puff. Chloe, next to him on her couch, sipped some Green Tea Coconut Water. On the TV screen, a cat was crying “No! no! no!” (Lucifer had objected to watching YouTube cat videos with lunch, but he had been outvoted by Chloe and her offspring.)

He’d just finished telling them about the notebook, and the notorious criminal, and Maze. Chloe had immediately dismissed the whole thing as a coincidence. But Trixie had become intrigued by the possibilities the notebook afforded.

“So you could write anyone, and they’d die?” she said, clearly fascinated. “I could write the girl who bullied me.”

“Didn’t she stop bullying you?” said Chloe. 

“Yes, after Lucifer scared her,” said Trixie. “But I’m still mad at her.”

Chloe eyed Lucifer suspiciously. “You scared a little girl?”

“She was a bully. The bully section of Hell is already too full. If I can scare someone out of bullying young enough, they won’t end up there, and I’m going to take the opportunity.”

“I really don’t believe you sometimes,” snapped Chloe. “As if scaring a kid who’s smaller than you is going to stop them from bullying kids who are smaller than them. It just perpetuates the whole cycle.” 

Lucifer didn’t bother to tell her that it wasn’t his _size_ he’d used to scare the mean girl. He’d flashed his eyes at her, giving her a glimpse of the bully section of Hell. If Trixie was to be believed, this had worked. One example of appropriate justice served, and no one harmed from it.

Well, he hoped not, anyway. 

To Trixie, Chloe said, “We don’t kill people for bullying, Trixie. It’s unjust for a punishment to be worse than the crime.”

“You mean, like when you made me go to my room for _five hours_ because I threw my lima beans on the floor?”

Chloe looked like she wished she hadn’t brought up this line of conversation. “That wasn’t a punishment, Trixie. I was protecting you.”

“From what?”

“From me! I’d had a bad day and that was just the last straw. Besides, your room isn’t a punishment. You spend most of your time in there anyway.”

“But you made me miss _Orphan Black!”_ wailed Trixie.

“Missing one episode of a TV show isn’t going to scar you for life, little Monkey.”

Trixie kicked her heels against the couch in protest. “I’m not _little!”_ She abruptly did an about-face. “Mommy, who would you write in the book?”

“No one…well. One person. But he’s already dead.”

“You shot him,” said Trixie. “But if you’d had the book, you could have written him in, and then he wouldn’t have kidnapped me. And then you wouldn’t have cried all the next day, even though we were both safe.”

Chloe took Trixie in her arms and rocked her. “I’m sorry that happened, Trixie. When I think about it, I…” She glared at Lucifer. “I wish you hadn’t brought this up. I think you’d better leave now. You’ve done enough damage for one day.”

Lucifer was jolted back to the present, from his memories of that day. How he’d died begging his Father to save Chloe. How he’d revived only a few moments before she’d shot Malcolm. 

How he’d never told her about any of that, so he shouldn’t be surprised if she ordered him out of her house, instead of being grateful he’d saved her life. 

Never mind. He didn’t want that kind of gratitude from Chloe anyway. 

If only he could figure out what he _did_ want from her.

He still wasn’t sure what his end of the “get out of death free” deal was supposed to be. He was supposed to be the deal-maker, and here he was, outmaneuvered by Dear Old Dad again. If his Father had a name, he would be tempted to write it in the notebook, just to see what would happen. 

~~~

“It what, now?” said Amenadiel, eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement.

It was early afternoon, the slow part of the day at Lux. He and Lucifer were sitting at the bar. Maze had served them drinks and then disappeared somewhere. She probably had the other bartender tied up in back, Lucifer thought.

“You write a person’s name in it, and they die,” repeated Lucifer.

Amenadiel didn’t have to be convinced that it was real. He was generally quite credulous. “Dad would never condone that!” Amenadiel insisted.

“I didn’t _say_ it had anything to do with Dad,” Lucifer snapped. 

“Then it must be someone from your realm who brought it here!”

“The only ones from my realm who are here are me, Maze, and Mum. Maze didn’t know anything about it until she tested it. And it doesn’t exactly seem like Mum’s style.”

This statement did not serve to allay Amenadiel’s concerns. “Okay, maybe it’s not from Hell, but — you have to get rid of it! Humans can’t be trusted with such a thing! How will we keep it safe?”

“Excuse me. I need to check whether Hell froze over, because you and I just agreed on something.” 

Maze had reappeared, wiping her mouth, and now she spoke. “What if it wasn’t from our Hell, but some other realm of the dead?” she asked. 

“You might be right, Maze!” said Lucifer, excited. “Amenadiel, you’re the scholar. Maybe you can tell us.”

“Bring it here, Lucifer,” said Amenadiel.

Lucifer was suddenly seized with a desire to be stubborn. “I shan’t. You might try to take it from me.”

Amenadiel glowered and puffed out his chest. “Are you implying I, God’s Firstborn, am not to be trusted?” 

“What do you think, Maze? Is he to be trusted?”

“Hell, no,” said Maze, glaring at her ex. Each had betrayed the other at some point, but to Maze, Amenadiel’s betrayal of her was all that mattered.

Amenadiel looked disgusted. “All right then, Luci. Let’s all go to the penthouse and look at it together.” 

“It has Japanese writing on it,” said Maze, when the notebook was laid on the table before them. She knew because she had ins with the local branch of the Yakuza. “Maybe it’s from their conception of the Underworld.” She flipped through the book until she reached the last page. “Hey, there’s more writing here.”

Lucifer snatched the notebook away and peered at it. “It says ‘I like apples’. Aha! Apples! The Shinigami on Hallowe’en must have left it.” 

“The what?” said Maze, whose knowledge of Japanese culture didn’t extend to folklore and religion. 

“The entity in the seven foot tall anime costume who you said was stealing apples. Let’s set out some apples. Maybe he’ll come and we can give the notebook back to him.”

Amenadiel was suspicious. “How will we know he can be trusted with it?”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Look, you don’t trust _us_ to keep it safe, and we haven’t got a Frodo to take it to Mount Doom and throw it in for us. So what else are we going to do?” 

Amenadiel folded his arms over his chest, but didn’t raise any more objections. 

~~~

On the table in Lucifer’s penthouse was a tray full of apples. He’d also set out a bottle of Lux’s house-made apple liqueur, just to be sure. 

When the Shinigami appeared, he looked down at them from a height of nine feet. Not because he’d grown, but because he was floating two feet above the ground. 

“Mmm, apples,” he said, in a voice that sounded like it came from the bowels of Hell. Or, the bowels of _somewhere_ the dead dwelled, anyway. He took two apples and stuffed them into his large mouth, chasing them with a swig from the bottle of liqueur.

“I’m afraid I was terribly rude last time we met,” said Lucifer, pouring on the charm. “I forgot to ask you your name.”

“I am Ryuk,” Ryuk rasped. “I am a God of Death. Well met, fellow God of Death.” He put out a leather clad hand. Lucifer grasped it, felt the hard talons underneath. 

“I’m not a god of death. Not a god of anything, actually,” corrected Lucifer. “I leave the God stuff to Dear Old Dad. I did used to rule Hell, though. That’s the —“

“I know Hell,” growled Ryuk. “I visit from time to time.” His gaze turned to Maze. “I know you, Mazikeen.” 

Maze’s eyes had widened. “It _is_ you! Old friend!” She strode toward him. He grasped her under the arms and lifted her into the air, into an embrace and a kiss. With demon tongue.

Amenadiel cringed and looked away. Lucifer licked his lips and enjoyed the show. 

After several minutes, Lucifer coughed loudly. “There’s a brief matter of business I’d like to attend to, and then you can go back to making out, all right?”

Ryuk reluctantly put Maze down and settled onto the ground himself. He ate another two apples. 

“About this Death Note you left behind…” Lucifer said, gesturing at it. 

“Oh, yes, I left it to make up for my taking your apples without permission the other day.” 

“I hate to be an ungracious gift recipient, but it’s too dangerous, and we’d like you to take it back.”

Ryuk looked a little disappointed. He swigged some apple liqueur.

“Dangerous?” he said.

“Yes, I went to most of the people I know well and talked to them about it, and none of us agreed on which kinds of people deserved to have their names in it. So we’re all afraid of what will happen if the Death Note gets into the wrong hands.”

Ryuk was grinning very widely. “Well, yes! That’s the fun of it! I thought as a fellow God of Death, you would understand. Don’t you just love giving humans complicated tests that will mess up their lives even more, no matter what they do?”

Lucifer, Amenadiel, and Maze all stared at him, and then at each other. 

“No, actually,” said Lucifer, and Amenadiel nodded in agreement. Maze looked torn. “We rather like helping humans. Their world is difficult enough for them to navigate without throwing supernatural booby-traps into it.”

“As for me,” said Maze, “I don’t like most humans, but I’m fond of a few. That means I protect them. Including from things like this.” She gestured at the notebook. “Okay, I did write one name in there. Not sure I would do it again, if I had the choice. Seems I’m fine with rounding up bounties. Roughing them up. Delivering them to justice. When I’m in Hell, I enjoy meting out their punishments, as determined by themselves and Hell’s ruler.” She glanced at Lucifer. “But ending their lives? If they’re not threatening me or the people I’m protecting? No. That doesn’t feel right.”

Ryuk shoved all five of the remaining apples in his mouth at once, and chewed loudly and messily for several minutes. He swallowed down the rest of the bottle of liqueur.

“I guess that settles it,” he said finally. “I’ll take the Death Note back. I’ll find something else to compensate you for the apples.”

“Please consider the apples compensated for, with thanks for your willingness to visit us,” said Lucifer quickly. 

“I, on the other hand, feel I’m still owed some compensation,” cut in Maze, licking her lips. “Come with me down to my dungeon and I’ll ponder what might suffice as payment.” 

“Delighted to, old friend,” Ryuk said with a lascivious grin. 

He held out his hand, and Lucifer deposited the Death Note into it.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration: Briana Lawrence from Anime News Network stated that what makes _Death Note_ so interesting is that there is no villain, "instead it had two opposing sides that both believe in the same thing: justice."
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_bobbing  
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap-dragon_(game)


End file.
